


Addio

by FrancesOsgood



Series: The Secrets We Keep [2]
Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Break Up, M/M, Male Homosexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24515737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrancesOsgood/pseuds/FrancesOsgood
Summary: Jareth had a long romantic affair with his cooking instructor, Luca, before the action of "The Secrets We Keep." This relationship is mentioned several times during that story. This brief tale describes the dissolution of said relationship. Bring wine and hankies.
Relationships: Jareth (Labyrinth)/Original Character(s)
Series: The Secrets We Keep [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1516433
Comments: 12
Kudos: 19





	Addio

Jareth awoke to the sound of drawers opening and closing and of items being shuffled across the floor. Opening his eyes, he turned and saw Luca carefully stacking folding shirts into a large suitcase. 

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m leaving, Jareth,” Luca answered, pausing in his packing for a moment. Normally, hearing his name spoken with that sexy Italian lilt would have made Jareth’s skin tingle in a most welcome way. His words, however, made him sit straight up in the bed, the coverlet bunching around his naked lower torso.

“Leaving, why? Is this about last night?” 

They had had another row the previous evening, complete with shouting and hurling of personal insults. This had been quickly followed by a marathon session of make-up sex. 

Luca shook his head, his dark eyes focused on the floor. “This is about  _ every _ night and  _ every _ day, Jareth.”

Jareth fell back onto his pillow and draped an arm across his face. He knew what was coming next. 

“I cannot keep doing this,  _ Caro _ ,” Luca told him, his black brows furrowed. He closed and latched the suitcase. “Perhaps it is enough for you to live on sex and pasta, but I need more. I deserve more.”

Moving his arm from his face, Jareth looked at his lover of the past three years.

“You are far more than sex and pasta to me, Luca,” he told him.

“Even so, you do not love me.”

“I’ve told you,  _ dolcezza, _ ” Jareth answered with a frown. “It’s difficult for me. In the past-”

“The past. The past. Aways this!” Luca threw his arms up. “The secret past you will not share with me. How can there be any future for us when you keep your past hidden from me?”

Jareth sat up and shrugged. “Why must we worry about the future or the past? Why can’t we just enjoy the present that we have together now?”

“I told you,” Luca answered, slinging the suitcase strap over his broad shoulder. “It is not enough. I want to be loved, Jareth. I want to be happy in that Forever love.”

“You want a fairytale,” Jareth told him, instantly regretting his cruel words. 

“Perhaps,” Luca replied softly. “But I still want it.”

Jareth studied the beautiful man standing at the foot of the bed. His handsome face, deep brown eyes and lithe figure had attracted Jareth almost immediately. If he hadn’t known better, he would have sworn that Luca was one his swarthy distant kinsmen, the Unseelie. His movements were so graceful, cat-like. Seeing him move about the kitchen was hypnotic. 

But Luca was beautiful beyond his olive skin and delicate features. His heart was kind and forgiving. He seemed only to want to give of himself and bring joy to others, a fact that Jareth found incredible considering his past struggles. Luca had been kicked out of his family home by his very Catholic parents when he’d returned from college with a boyfriend. He’d been in a string of toxic relationships after that. He was quick to give his heart away, always desperate to belong and be loved. 

Jareth sighed sadly. Luca did deserve more. Much more than he could give him. He knew that he would never understand the reality of his past. How could any human accept such a story of goblins and wishes and magical mazes? He had once considered fabricating a new past for himself, but the thought of lying to his trusting lover left a sour taste on his tongue. 

Swinging his long legs over the side of the bed, Jareth stood and moved toward Luca. 

“The last thing I want to do is hurt you,” he told him. “But I cannot give you what you want.”

Luca nodded slowly. “I know,” he said quietly. “I can no longer fool myself to believe that things will change between us,  _ Caro.  _ But I understand why now. Perhaps more than you.”

“What?” asked Jareth, confused.

Luca lifted his eyes and looked at the former king of the goblins. A single tear slid down his cheek. “I wish for your heart,” he began, “but it is not available for you to give. It has already been given.”

“What are you talking about? There is no one else…”

“Not now, no,” said Luca. “But there was once. I see the echo of them in your eyes when certain songs play. I see the searching in your face when we visit the park. I felt it in your embrace that night we danced by the sea.”

Jareth’s breath caught in his throat as Luca continued. “Somewhere in your secret past there is someone you love desperately.”

A memory flashed across Jareth’s mind: dark hair and emerald eyes. Pouting lips crying “It’s not fair!” and a path of destruction from the outer walls of the Labyrinth right up to the castle gates.

Luca smiled through his tears. “You know it is true, yes?”

Jareth gave a blank nod in answer. 

“I cannot begin to understand what keeps you from being with this person,” Luca said, laying a hand against Jareth’s cheek. “But I do not wish to stand in the way of you finding true love. And I believe that you would not want to stand in the way of me finding it either.”

“No,” answered Jareth, laying a pale hand over Luca’s dark one.

“Then we can part as friends. With no hard feelings.”

“Yes,” Jareth whispered.

“I shall never forget you,  _ Caro.”  _

“Nor I you,  _ dolcezza.”  _

Luca leaned forward and pressed his mouth against his and a chill fell across Jareth’s heart as he knew in a flash of Sight that he would never kiss those sweet lips again. But he wouldn’t ask him to stay. Not even for one more night. It was time to let him go. He stepped out of the embrace and turned away toward the window. 

Luca released a little sigh. “ _ Addio, mi amore _ .”

“Goodbye.”

The bedroom door closed behind him, but Jareth stayed at the window as Luca’s footsteps echoed down the hall. He remained still as the front door opened and closed. He closed his eyes as he heard the creak of the wooden stairs taking Luca out of the building and out of his life forever. 

With slumped shoulders, Jareth leaned down and retrieved a pair of lounge pants from the floor where they’d been hastily discarded the night before. He slowly pulled them on before padding out to the empty lounge. Looking around at the walls and cluttered tables, he noticed that Luca had not taken much with him besides his clothes. His worn guitar sat silent beside the fireplace. His books, mostly in Italian, were still stacked beside his favorite chair. There was one empty space on the mantle. A single picture frame was missing, the one that contained a strip of pictures they had taken together in one of those ridiculous touristy photo booths in Brighton. Luca had convinced him to make silly faces at the camera and they had both laughed hysterically at the pictures. Wiping a mirthful tear from Jareth’s eye, Luca had leaned in and kissed him before whispering “I love you” for the first time. That he had chosen to carry that one memory with him told Jareth more than any words could. 

The tears came then. Not heaving, wracking sobs, but a bitter stream of cold tears that hit the floor like shattered diamonds. Jareth sat down in his chair and laid his head in his hands. He knew Luca was right to leave and didn’t regret letting him go. Still, the solitude stretching out before him was suddenly terrifying. He had lived for eons in isolation with only a horde of brainless goblins and the occasional wished-away child for company and he hadn’t minded. But after three years of almost constant company, living alone seemed unthinkable. 

Grabbing his hat and coat, Jareth trudged down the creaky stairs and out onto the bustling streets of South Hampton. He glowered as crowds of couples holding hands and linking arms jostled past him. It irritated him that he now craved interactions such as those. He felt very small, a shadow of who he had been an hour earlier. But this ache wasn’t new. This was an old wound, ripped open afresh and laid bare. 

Suddenly out of breath, Jareth stopped and leaned against a store window. This would not do. He, former King of the Goblins and Lord of the Labyrinth could not carry on in such a fashion. Even if his days as the Ruler of the Underground were over, such thoughts and behavior were more suited to adolescent girls. He had a life, a career, a flat of his own… 

A noise behind him made him turn. He paused, staring at the beautiful creature before him for a moment before breaking into a wide smile. An exquisite bird perched in a bamboo cage just on the other side of the glass. It’s ebony wings shone in the morning light and it opened its bright red beak and squawked, “Hello, Gorgeous!” 

“Hello yourself,” answered Jareth with a grin. The bird cocked its head to one side and seemed to smile back. 

Without a moment’s hesitation, Jareth swept inside the pet shop. There was an empty space beside his chair and he knew exactly how to fill it. 

**Author's Note:**

> In honor of Pride Month


End file.
